I recently went thru the 1-week training period at CDC in Seoul, and even though I haven't started teaching yet, I'm starting to have second thoughts.

I have to say (and this might sound almost trivial to some of you) that the attitude of my trainer there, as well as the higher-up who eventually hired me, really sucked. I mean disrespectful, unfriendly, and simply rude. And I'm wondering how this will affect my morale or desire to do a good job working for CDC.

In one session, we had a woman (Korean-American) for 2 days training us on some very complicated material. Despite her expertise on the training material, I don't think she really taught very well or made sure we really understood what we had to know for the next day. There was simply too much information thrown at us from all directions, and we couldn't be expected to assimilate them for next day's test.

I should add that she also had a poor personality that showed in her loud, aggressive yelling voice that was out of place since there were only 3 of us altogether in a very small room.

There were other indications. For example, when we chatted a bit just before training began, her responses to my questions about CDC betrayed a disturbing hostility and bitterness that she poorly masked with laughter.

Another time, during break she asked if I had prepared for that day's lesson, which I didn't have a handle on. I replied that I was more focused on the material we were to be tested on instead, which was quite complicated and took up a lot of my studying time.

She then responded with a rude insincerity that insulted my study habits and the efforts I had put into mastering the material. It was an insincerity that can only described as hateful, precisely because her insincerity was malicious spite wrapped in a pleasant-sounding voice of false concern.

She was (is) a rude, disrespectful person, and I was bitterly resentful of her attitude towards me - a trainee - who should have been properly motivated and trained by her. She made a very distasteful impression of herself, and even though I complained to management about her, I don't know if anything will be done about it.

The guy who eventually hired me (also Korean-American, I'll call him "S.") wasn't much better himself. Granted, he's a corporate guy who has to make business decisions. He isn't out to make friends, and I have no problem with that.

On Friday right after training was over, I was requested to go to one of the rooms and wait for one of the managers to talk to me. A few minutes later, one of the other higher-ups told me to go to another room and wait there. So I gathered my things and left to go to this new room.

As I was walking away, I heard S. demand to one of his associates in a loud, almost angry voice, "where is (my name) going?"

Now, he knew me, and he knew my name. I was only a few feet away from him. But for some reason he saw fit not even to address me, but to refer to me in the third person. I found this VERY disrespectful, but I said nothing and went inside.

The funny thing is, given how little this manager seemed to regard me, he hired me anyway (albeit in an unfriendly, businesslike tone). That surprised me. I was almost sure he was going to give me the axe, especially since he was told by my trainer that I wasn't fully prepared for one of the lessons. S. even met with me privately and addressed this issue with me in a very unfriendly tone earlier that day.

Right after I hired, I went home and started looking at other teaching job offers. The CDC staff there really turned me off, especially the "gyopo" (Korean-American) staff, who seem to have worse attitudes than native Koreans.

Now that I'm hired, I'm wondering how much contact I'm going to have with the Gangnam office once I start teaching. If I don't have to go to Gangnam (or rarely) and deal with these assholes, then I might actually stick with CDC, and give this teaching thing a go.

I'm just wondering if any of you who taught at CDC encountered something similar. And if you did, how did you deal with it and not let it distract you from your job?